Lonely Planet CEO departs amid reports of a possible sale

Daniel Houghton “has stepped away from Lonely Planet to take on a CEO role at another company,” said a Lonely Planet spokeswoman, adding, “the rest of the leadership team remains in place and will be continuing with business as usual.”

Lonely Planet has confirmed the departure of its chief executive amid reports that the world’s leading travel authority and independent travel content provider is up for sale.

Daniel Houghton “has stepped away from Lonely Planet to take on a CEO role at another company,” said a Lonely Planet spokeswoman, adding, “the rest of the leadership team remains in place and will be continuing with business as usual.”

Houghton took the helm, aged 24, in 2013 and restructured the business to be content first, enabling digital innovation whilst retaining the original print business.

The company has grown its print business too, despite critics predicting this would not be possible: Lonely Planet has the highest guidebook market share in its history.

Lonely Planet, this year was named one of Fast Company’s Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Travel.

Since 2013, Lonely Planet has undergone a transformation from a heritage travel guidebook publisher - 45 years old this year - to an agile multimedia travel company.

In 2017, Lonely Planet launched a series of digital innovations including a new video platform on lonelyplanet.com and a new mobile app, Trips by Lonely Planet.

The popular mobile app Guides by Lonely Planet also recently reached two million downloads of the 200 city guides available.